[lunarboy4]

This is the diary of an existing shadowrunner in a campaign that I am playing in. If I'm putting it in the wrong place, please tell me. I'm kind of new to the forum. But, I do hope that you guys enjoy the diary of one of my personal favorite characters. Hopefully, if she lives, she will have a long and interesting story for you guys and gals to read!

My name is Aqua, and I am a technomancer. Wow, it feels really weird to say that. Most people don’t respond too well to things like that, and I don’t want to risk any violence.  Before anyone asks, I am a cyberadept, but don’t read too much into it. Most technomancers, in my experience, like to keep their lives a secret, and I don’t blame them. But, so much has happened to me that I feel I need to share so I don’t go insane. Incidentally, I started this diary.

I was born within the walls of the Seattle Neonet Arcology. My parents were low level managers, and they were hardly ever around. I basically grew up listening to nannies and other hired officials during the day, having dinner with my parents, and then going to bed. Not much of a life, huh? When I finally went to kindergarten, I was really stressed about finding and making friends and all of the usual school stuff. That first day of school is the day I emerged into the resonance.

All I remember about that first day of school is walking into the classroom, freaking out about how many people were there and my nannies leaving me, and then all of the information. All of the information just started flowing through my head, and I couldn’t stop it. I don’t know for sure what happened to the classroom or everything else, but I do know what happened to me. I passed out. Tragically, I awoke in a Neonet hospital, overseen by one of my nannies since my parents couldn’t get off of work. Ever since then, my life has been about training to become a neonet technomancer.

I started running because of a stupid reason. I loved Shadowrun MMO, and I was pretty good at it. And, by pretty good, I mean very good. So, like most other people who get really good at a game, I got bored with it. Now, most people would just find another outlet for their gaming energies; not me. I decided that it would be a fun to start running in real life. Luckily (or unluckily), I met a real-life fixer on Shadowrun MMO who decided to hire me on. We’ll call him Vince. Thus, at 16, I became a shadowrunner.

[lunarboy4]

Hey! Here's the first mission that Aqua ever went on! Hope everyone who is reading this enjoys it!

One day in September while I was on my way home from school, Vince texted me with my very first meet location. Naturally, I was nervous and excited, but for different reasons. I was excited for the opportunity to go on my first run, but I was nervous about sneaking out of the arcology to go to an upscale tea room. Luckily, all I had to do was tell my parents that I was going out with some friends… Is it sad that I don’t miss them? I mean, I feel that I should miss them because it represents my innocence or something like that, but there’s only one person from my past that I miss. We’ll get to him later.

Once I finally got to the tea room, I had to wait in line to get in the place. While in line, I noticed a limo pull up and this one older guy just walk into the place. At the time, I just shrugged it off. Little did I know that he would be one of the pieces that led to my new life. I finally go to the front of the line, and the bouncer ran my SIN, a fake one that said I was 18 so I could get into places like this. He gave me a funny look, making me think that my SIN didn’t pass, but he let me through anyways.

Upon entering the tea room, I was instantly impressed by the design and smell of the place. I’ve never really had fancy tea before, so I was excited. I ordered a pot that I could actually afford; I honestly can’t remember what it was. After a while, I was called to a private room where I met my new team and the Johnson. The job seemed simple enough, 5,000 nuyen each for getting a payment from 5 businesses and delivering it to a specific location. We accepted the job and decided to get to know each other a little. There I met the important male human for earlier, named Dr. Alan Grant. Dr. Grant was a professor of physics from Cambridge University. Also, there was an ork Female named Cail who was a boxer. I looked her up and found that she has a gym somewhere in the Barrens. Then there was Steve, a human male who happened to be a mage. That is about all the information that I found on him. Finally, there was Arson, a human female who claimed to be an infiltrator. Again, I didn’t find much on her.

There were five establishments that we had to go to, and, since there were five of us, we had to send one person to each one. This was because we had to get the money from each of the establishments simultaneously.  There were two coffee shops, a hardware store, a burger joint, and a siding business. I was assigned to go to one of the coffee shops at the assigned time.

I arrived about a half hour before the assigned time and, stupidly, decided to go ahead and give the guy behind the counter the keyword that I was supposed to use. I waited for about a half hour before he finally gave me the cred stick. As I left, I was stopped by cops holding guns at me. Not quite being the hardened runner I am today, I froze. When they started to approach me, I ran. And, I got shot. Tragically, I fell, they arrested me, and I was put in the car. Luckily, I am a technomancer, and I was able to tell the rest of the group that I was in trouble. A few minutes later they arrived and got me out of the cop car and grabbed my commlink and the cred stick. After that, we delivered the cred stick to the appropriate location, I was healed, and we parted ways.

Upon reflection, telling the manager the code phrase ahead of time is probably the reason that the cops were there. But, I was young and stupid. Hah! What is funny is that that run was only a couple of months ago, and I’m saying that I was young. How do things like this happen? I mean, how do people grow up so fast when they are in the shadows? Sounds like an interesting book. Maybe when I’m not busy hiding from the authorities I will try to write it.

Anyways, the next day at school, I was called to the office where the Neonet police were waiting for me to arrest me. I tried to say that I was shadowrunning, but then they asked about my team, and I didn’t want to betray them. So, I lied, and that didn’t work. Luckily, I wasn’t arrested, but I was basically put under house arrest. My parents were upset, and I don’t blame them. I put a spot on their perfect little corporate records since I was being a bad child. I was escorted by officers everywhere I went, even school. It sucked. But, my P2 rating went way up. If that’s a positive at all.

[lunarboy4]

The next meet we had, and, yes, I went to the meet, was at some all you can eat rib joint. It wasn’t my brightest decision to go, by the way, but I went. Tragically, I had to find a way to get around my parents and the two armed guards I had on me. That was easy enough. Mom and Dad decided to go out to eat, so I just spoofed a message from their boss demanding them back to work and spoofed a message to my guards saying that I was no longer in need of their services, calling them to do something else. Funny thing was, they all fell for it. I guess fate wanted me to run, if you believe in such things.

Anyways, I arrived at the meet location and we were approached by the Johnson. She seemed frazzled and it was obvious that this was her first time doing this. She wanted us to look for someone, and we accepted the job. It turns out that the missing person was her uncle, an elf who worked for Ares and had been missing for six days. He was last seen with one of his friends, Aaron.

Knowing that I was basically under house arrest, the team needed a way for me to be able to help them. The next day, while I was at school, the team came up with a plan. When I arrived at home, I was surprised to see that Dr. Grant was in my living room, talking to my parents. He had them convinced that I was smart enough to get accepted into Cambridge University, not only at 16, but as an American. Honestly, I think my parents were just glad to be rid of me, because they practically threw me out the door. It took everything I had to not cry when I saw that my mom had already packed my bags for me to go before I had even gotten home. But, I didn’t, and that’s all that matters. Oh, and did I forget to mention that I had an RFID tag underneath my skin at the base of my neck? Yay for being a Corp kid! So, we had to have one of Dr. Grant’s friends in Cambridge fake a signal all the way in England that was supposed to be me. Also, just to be sure, we drove to the Airport and we waited to turn off my signal. While we were waiting, we came up with the bright idea to have me hack into the Airport and have our names be on the airplane manifest. Stupidly, I did it. Also, I got caught. The spider actually managed to use a black IC against me, but, for some reason, he just suddenly disappeared. I think that he accidentally shut himself down. I finished the job, but I honestly didn’t do that good of a job, now that I think back on it. I logged out, not thinking to erase my data trail, turned off my tracker, and went on with my day. This is where I entered the shadows completely without realizing it.

After we left the airport, we went to Dr. Grant’s really nice penthouse. I mean, it was awesome! The room was nice, the Matrix access was amazing, and the room service was delicious! Also, Dr. Grant had apparently set up a node for me to practice hacking into high security systems. But, what he told me was that I needed to hack into Ares and see if the mark was still on the payroll. Vastly overestimating my abilities, I quickly agreed to go. So, I went VR and I hacked into the node. Getting in was easy enough, but finding the information was more difficult. To this day, I still have a sucky Browse Complex form, and, at that time, I don’t even think I had one. As I was looking for the information, I was discovered. The spider tried to fight me, but he disappeared as well. But, I decided to go ahead and leave the node. I told Dr. Grant that I couldn’t find anything, and he told me it was a fake anyways. Telling me that I could practice on it anytime, I decided to give it another try. This time, I was fighting two spiders, and I barely got out alive. Seriously, they easily defeated me. Little did I know that that experience made me afraid of being outnumbered. Needless to say, I decided to rest for a bit while the rest of the team continued to investigate the missing person.

After some investigation from everyone, we got a lead at the Murdered Mime. The Murdered Mime is a bar on the outside, but, apparently, it has an underground casino operation that has a hard on for bloody events. Seriously, there were fights between metahumans and paranormal creatures and there was a literal gun-to-head-and-pull-the-trigger Russian roulette game. Oh, and did I forget to mention that it has Yakuza connections? Yeah, it was not a fun place to be. Luckily for me, I was the only one who didn’t go, well, in a meat body, that is. Somehow, and I don’t know how, Dr. Grant got ahold of a lot of money, and he got invites into the place. He only had enough for himself, a date, and two bodyguards. So, Arson, who didn’t want to be anywhere near pretty, which still baffles me to this very day, was his date and Cail and Steve were his bodyguards. I wasn’t getting in anyways; apparently nobody believes that I’m 18. Oh well.

So, the night where Dr. Grant and his posse went to the casino arrived, and it was my job to do over watch. It was easy enough, I got to the node, stealthed myself, scanned for hidden nodes, found the security node, and got in. Once I got in, I had to decrypt the security feeds, which was easy enough. Finally, I got into the camera system, and I was able to watch for the guy. Apparently, there was this Indian guy who was a person of interest to someone, so I took a quick screenshot and saved the picture to my data chip. We found the guy, but, he was one of the guys playing Russian roulette. Literally, he was putting the gun to his head and firing. They were placing bets on whether or not he’d off himself, and I was just watching, horrified. Seriously, it looked like he had been there so long that he was conditioned to do it. It was so sad. It was even sadder when he lost. I saved a portion of that video to send to the Johnson.

As I was about to log out, I found that I couldn’t. I analyzed the node and found that there was someone else in the node with me. Not wanting another fight, I tried to talk to him. He was willing to talk, and he threatened me. He told me that I needed to keep what I saw to myself; otherwise he would kill everyone I knew and loved. Not wanting that to happen, but not really believing him, I agreed and he let me leave. I left, showed the Johnson only what she needed to see, and we got paid.

You would think that this was the end of the interesting events, right? You would be wrong. Flashing across the news was a picture of me with the word “Terrorist” right next to it. I couldn’t believe it. How could I be a terrorist? But, apparently hacking into an airport marks you as a terrorist anymore. Also, a bombing in the Aztechnology parking lot the next day tends to make people think that there are connections. Not that I don’t blame people for thinking that, but still, I didn’t bomb Aztechnology. I was scared out of my mind, and I didn’t know what to do. Everyone basically left me. That witch, Arson, just said “I don’t want to be associated with terrorist!” and left, apparently Dr. Grant lost his backing and the penthouse, and Steve and Cail just left. I was literally alone. I couldn’t go home, because I would just be arrested, but I couldn’t run either. I was between a rock and a hard place. So, being stupid, I decided to go home and just deal with the consequences.

Neonet police were waiting for me at home when I got there. They actually talked to me, which surprised me. They basically offered me two options, work for them as a runner or go to jail. I chose to work for them and betray my team. I didn’t like any of them, and I valued my life more than theirs, so I chose to continue running as a Neonet spy. I literally became an employee of Neonet, biometrics and all. On the plus side, I no longer needed to be escorted by armed guards.  Little did I know that it wouldn’t last long.

[lunarboy4]

Another meet we were assigned to was at some warehouse. Luckily, since now it was part of my job, I didn’t have to worry about my parents trying to stop me. It was there that I met the newest member of the team, Sigh. Honestly, she didn’t say much, so I didn’t get much of an impression. But, I did notice that she was about my age, and she was heavily augmented. I also noticed that Cail was gone, which is fine, but, now that I think about it, I do wonder how she is doing. I hope that she’s okay.

Anyways, I got to the meet, and Dr. Grant was openly angry with me. He was so angry that he didn’t accept the job. Because he left, Sigh left, and then the rest of us had to turn down the job as well. So, Vince set us up with another meet. This time, we accepted. Basically, the job was to assist the bodyguards of a rock band at a gig in Underworld 93 for three days.

Since I’m the team hacker, I got assigned matrix security and cameras. So, I talked to the main security guy, we’ll call him Huey. Huey was a male dwarf who had a bit of an attitude. He was basically ready to retire, and he was training someone to take his place. This guy, we’ll call him Gunther, a.k.a. Moron and another name that I do not believe I can repeat on these forums. Gunther was in charge of the drones and the camera placement, and I found that the cameras had huge holes in the coverage. This should have been a huge hint, but I just figured he was inexperienced and made a mistake. I told Huey and he had Gunther take care of it. Also, Huey asked me to run diagnostics on the drones, which I found that they had a few things that needed taken care of.

Day two of the job, and it was eventful. There was a break in that we couldn’t find on the camera feeds. So, I immediately went to searching through every single frame, and I just barely found the cause as to why it wasn’t on there. Basically, about three seconds of camera time wasn’t on the cameras. That tells me that a hacker got in and edited that away. So, I immediately tried to find the four hour old trial. Luckily, I found it. So, I tracked it, but I only got as far as a taco stand. Luckily for me, it was the most amazing taco stand ever! Oh, my gosh, these tacos were the best thing I have ever eaten!

Anyways, the guy that got in was a big, scary, heavily cybered guy. I honestly didn’t catch his name; I don’t think anyone else did. Apparently he was also at the bar that the rock star and the rest of the group went to see, but I decided that I was going to watch the node like a hawk. I was not going to let anything like that hacker getting in and erasing that video feed happen again. But, at the bar, apparently the heavily cybered guy started a fight because of his open hatred of the rock star. While the team was pursuing him from the fight, apparently the Indian guy was in the van that the heavily cybered guy got in. Arson was asking about him, and I sent her the picture I had taken on the previous mission.

Day three, the day of the concert, approached. I immediately showed up, got on the node, and analyzed like crazy. I was watching the node like there was no tomorrow. As the concert went on, apparently the heavily cybered guy showed up again. He apparently didn’t do anything, but still. It put me on edge. So, there was one individual who tried to get into the node, but I quickly stopped him. But, I turned around and there the scary guy was from the previous mission. He took a swing at me with an Iron bar, and it hurt. But, the other times he swung at me, it was like he missed on purpose. He just simply told me something along the lines of, “I told you to watch what you share.”

Needless to say, I haven’t shared much since. I still refuse to share the picture. I don’t want to die. Anyways, he left, Gunther’s icon was gone, and I was left with Huey. Needless to say, we figured out fast that Gunther was a plant, and that there was a sniping attempt at the rock star. The rock star lived, and we got paid, but I didn’t like what happened. Like Sigh said, it seemed like they were just testing us.

[lunarboy4]

With that mission looming over our shoulders, we were set up with another meet. There, I met another new member of the team, Joy. Joy is a street doc who is running. Apparently she is the replacement for Arson, because Arson was missing. Actually, she was arrested for setting off a bomb in an airport. Not wanting to associate with terrorists, yet she became one in the end. Talk about irony.

Basically, we were asked to intercept a shipment of cred sticks. The pay was 1,000 nuyen each and we decided to go for it. It turns out that we were intercepting a shipment to the Gonelli family of the mafia. Sounds great, right? So, we decided to do some research, and we found out some things about the family, but we didn’t find out anything about the meet. But, we did find some places that might have connections to the family, like Del Clearey’s, a family owned bar with Strong connections to the mafia. Also, the owner hates the Gonelli family. Now that I think about it, I have no idea why we sent Dr. Grant or Steve there at all. But, they went there, and I told them not to make waves. Seriously, in my research, I found that these people were serious about keeping the peace, to the point of murder. But, anyways, Apparently, Dr. Grant went and was talking to the bartender, and then he was asked to go out to an ally. There, he got shot at, so he decided to go back into the bar, and that is when Steve left. Next thing we knew, He was strung up on a light post in the mafia territory, dead.

Next we went to Danny’s Bar and Grill, run by the Finnegan Family. We got in, and I immediately found a node that was heavily encrypted. Steve told me that I shouldn’t do it, so I didn’t. I wanted to, really badly, and I really didn’t want to listen to him. But, I did. And, I’m glad that I did, because the Johnson walked up and sat down with us. Apparently, he was part of the Finnegan family. Oh well, we gave him the information that we had found, and he gave us some more information that he had obtained about the drop. It was going from the Renton Shopping center to somewhere else via a courier. We left, and then Sigh and I went to the mall to investigate.

But, we went home to grab stuff before we went to the mall. And apparently some of Sigh’s contacts found the route that the courier might be going on, so Joy and Steve went to investigate the end point.

At the mall, we went to the paranormal critters exhibit, and I tried to hack into the mall system so I could look at the cameras. But, once I got in, I couldn’t get out and there was nothing in the mall node. So, I looked and found the guy who was keeping me in. I honestly don’t remember how I got out, but I got out, just in time to be told by Sigh that mall cops were on their way. So, I bolted. As I was bolting, the one cop who happens to be fit tackled me from another shop. I have the best luck, don’t I? So, I was placed in the holding room and one of the fat mall cops was with me. I was told by Steve to find a way out, and somehow Feminine wiles were mentioned and I ended up trying to flirt my way out. I almost had it, but the cop came to his senses. Later I found out that he was gay, which makes me wonder how I almost had him. Maybe he’s bi? Anyways, Joy had a plan. She called some of her friends and asked them to cause a ruckus. Luckily, they did, and I was able to slip out by hacking into the mag-lock. Again, I had a battle with my cruddy command program, but I eventually got through. I escaped the mall, and told Sigh that I was leaving. I didn’t want to get caught again.

Tragically, after I left, Steve and Joy arrived, and apparently everything went down. They all followed everyone to the end point in the ally where Dr. Grant got shot, and I was asked to hack into bar’s node. Sounds easy enough, right? Nope, it was so heavily encrypted that I couldn’t get through. I mean, I could, but it was taking me long enough that they probably already knew that I was there. So, I gave up and told the team that it was way above my skill level. So, they just told me to go to the final destination point so that I could turn off any cyberware or smartguns in case it came to that. So, I went. I got the order, and I immediately started hacking. I got into an electronic firing system and turned it off. Next I jumped into some cyberware that turned out to be breast implants. Being brilliant, I turned off the safety and told them to expand. I quickly left, and, judging by the fact that the node disappeared, I would say that her boobs exploded. That was probably the funniest way I’ve ever come across to incapacitate someone. But, the next guy was hard to get into; my poor decrypt complex form was just not working. But, eventually they told me that they were leaving because they got the chips, so I erased my data trail and left.

Sigh decided to meet me at a local coffee so I could get my money, and we had a nice chat. That is, until we were approached by the same Indian man from the casino. I was visibly scared, and he basically threatened us. He told me that I needed to stop sharing photographs, and I agreed. He threatened both of our lives and the lives of the ones we love. He even mentioned Runnermage, the guy I mentioned earlier. Then, right after that, he left. After that, Joy called me, wanting me to check out a datachip she received that was threatening her. I went to get it, and I listened to it right in front of her. It was the Indian guy. This time, I kept my cool, on the outside, at least. Inside, I was scared to death. I told her that I’d look into it at home, and she left. Once I got home, I smashed the datachip and called her up, saying I couldn’t find anything and that I destroyed it. She immediately freaked out, saying that she could have had Vince check it out or something like that. Knowing what I know, that would have gotten Vince and other people killed. So, I decided to just lie and came up with the lame excuse that it was scary and I freaked

[lunarboy4]

Before we get to the next mission, there is something I need to talk about. Remember the guy I mentioned earlier? He’s a friend I met on Shadowrun MMO who ran under the name of Runnermage. We became really good friends, maybe even more. I don’t know about him, but I started to really like him. He really knew how to make a girl happy. Earlier, on a mission, I asked a courier sprite to track him down so I could finally know who he is. I mean, he made it obvious that he knew who I was because my parents have this mean habit of turning off the matrix in my room at certain hours of the night. But, as punishment, they decided to turn my matrix off for a while. He went to my room and turned my matrix back on. Of course, he did it through the matrix, not in person. We played Shadowrun MMO for the rest of the night.

My courier sprite finally found him, and told me about him. Turns out, he lives in the same Neonet arcology as me, and he has sprites that speak Russian. Also, the sprite found out that he is actually in my school. So, I spent three days scanning in every class for another technomancer. Finally, in my last class on the last day, I finally found one. I found him. Turns out he’s a nerdy ork who hangs with the other computer people. I hung out with the “cool” computer people. He hangs out with the stereotypical nerdy computer geeks. I don’t know how much Russian he speaks, but I learned a little just so I can impress him.

[jonathanc]

I like this. It's no small feat to keep a story like this going...dedication to the craft is the first hurdle.

[lunarboy4]

Hey! This is going to be the last entry in Aqua's diary for a while. Good news, we're finally up to date! Bad news, the next session isn't until the 28th of March. So, I hope you guys enjoy this installment in the exciting life of Aqua, the technomancer!

[lunarboy4]

After the whole chip incident, Sigh took me to her place and told me just what I had gotten myself into. She said that she was an escaped clone and that she was a trained assassin. Also, she said that she knows the people who are after us. I informed her of my position in Neonet, and she said that the people who are after us are a council of multiple corps. Possibly even Neonet. That scared me. I honestly didn’t know what to do from there. She told me to go home and act like nothing happened. She’ll take care of me. Apparently, she has developed a certain loyalty to me, because she started asking about Neonet’s security in case it came to her having to come get me. I appreciate it, and I immediately did my best to encrypt her cyberware. It isn’t that good, in fact, it’s horrible, but it’s better than nothing.

After that, I went home. I immediately called up a contact who happens to be a technomancer. He helped me out in the past, and I hoped that he would be willing to help me become a better technomancer somehow. I mean, I needed to find a way to become better if I was to be of any help to anyone. He and I were talking, and going on a vision quest came up. I asked about it, and he said that I could go on a journey in the matrix and become a better technomancer that way. He asked for some money, I paid him, he started talking to his contacts, and he told me to find someone to watch my body while I was in VR, because it can take a while to do the journey. Also, he told me to talk to a sprite about the journey.

So, first, I compiled a data sprite and it mentioned a gatekeeper. When I asked about the gatekeeper and if there was a way to get through with its permission, the sprite simply said no and disappeared. Next, I called up Joy to look over my body. She said that she’d do it, but the next day. About this time, my contact called me up and told me that he was ready that day. Great, now I have to find another doctor to watch my body. I decided to call up Sigh, hoping that she could help. Luckily, she quickly agreed and called her street doc friend to set up an IV and the biomoniters. I went over to her place, called up my contact, and he told me a node to go to.

Once I got to Sigh’s place, I went VR and went to the node. I found it, but it was surrounded by a cliff and gravity was in effect. Thinking that it was a leap of faith situation, I stepped off the cliff and started falling. As I continued to fall, I realized that I was in an infinite loop. I was honestly freaking out a little, but my survival instincts kicked in. I immediately started scanning for the hidden node, and I found it. IT was encrypted, but I quickly decrypted it. After that, I exploited in, and I got into the node. Awaiting me was my contact, two icons that were exact opposites, a knight, and an icon that looked like a sun. They told me that getting into the node was the first test and then they gave me access to the node. Then, one of them called up a door and told me that there’s no turning back once I go through that door. With only a moment’s hesitation, I went through the door.

Once I got through, I was immediately on a rocky path surrounded by lava. At the end of the path were a large gate and a large man in black, thorny armor with a huge sword. At first, the armor didn’t say anything, so I slowly approached the gate. As I got closer, he didn’t move until I got about a few feet away from him. Then he only moved in the middle of the gate. I asked if I could get past, and all he did was swing at me. I dodged, barely, but I dodged. Then, out of nowhere, a second set of armor showed up! I immediately started freaking out, especially when I noticed that the lava starting to rise onto the rock path. Surprisingly, keeping cool, I programmed a pilot program that gave my persona wings so I could fly! As I was doing that, armor two decided to split into another man of armor. Great, as if I wasn’t already outnumbered. I had to fight three now. Also, armor one got on a flying mount and proceeded to join me in the sky. As I tried to attack armor one by breathing fire onto him, I actually hit, but it didn’t seem to do much damage. Then, armor one struck me down from the sky, hard. I went pummeling toward the ground, and crashed. Then, armors two and three were looming over me. I knew I was going to die, but I had no choice other than to go down swinging. So, I quickly got up and jumped into the air, doing a split kick at both of them. I sent one of them flying into the lava and the other one dodged it. Armor one swooped down and got a grapple on me, pushing me to the ground. All he did after that was scream the word “fear” at me, and all three of them disappeared. Now that I think back on it, he was probably making me face my fear of being outnumbered. I’m glad to say that I succeeded.

After that, all I did was analyze the area and found that to get through the gate, I had to clear my mind and take a leap of faith. So, I did my best to clear my mind and then I took a step into the unknown. I made it through, and then I opened my eyes to find a small little girl skating around the inside of this sphere. She told me that she was going to teach me something. I had to choose one of two books, so I chose one and learned to be able to split my consciousness in two. I believe it’s called multiprocessing? I’m not quite 100% sure about that, though.

After I learned from the little girl, I left and went back to my body. As it turns out, I was out for a week. I awoke to find Sigh looking over my body with her hand on her Katana. She told me that I couldn’t go home anymore, that something happened and I needed to turn my tracker off. So, I got into my tracker and the battle with my command program had begun. I went VR, because I would need all of the advantages I could get. My command complex form is not so good, so it actually took a while. On the first try a message got sent out, I tried to sniffer, but I failed. I could guess that it was just telling the Neonet HQ that someone was trying to turn off my tracker. Whatever, they would have figured it out anyways. I kept trying to turn off the tracker, and it kept not working, until I finally got it! I got out of VR to awaken to a huge explosion. I lived, obviously, but it was still unnerving. Next thing I knew, Sigh had whisked my off of my feet and was carrying me out to a combat taxi. Luckily, I did grab my purse, which contained my gun. Once we got into the taxi, I put on my seatbelt, and got my gun out. Then, a sword came plunging down from the roof of the car. That wasn’t fun; I immediately ducked down into the seat and was looking out the window, gun at the ready. If I saw whoever was attacking us, I was ready to take a shot. It was kind of nerve wracking, because I have never shot my gun before. Before now, it was kind of just a concept. I didn’t think I would ever use it. But, at that moment, I knew that I needed to use it, and I had to be ready to use it. I was ready to use it, I was ready to kill someone to protect myself and Sigh. Sure, Sigh can take care of herself, but that didn’t mean that I couldn’t help.

The driver shot at the person on the roof, and that person fell off of the roof of the car and tumbled into the street. After that, he took us to Joy’s place, and we were let off there. Sigh immediately started talking to her about what was going on, because we were all in too deep to get out. Then we tried to call Steve over, and he was being attacked by a mage. So, we all piled into Joy’s ambulance, and joy called a contact who sent help over for Steve. We got there finally, and Steve was running from a giant rock golem. It wasn’t friendly. So, we opened the doors for Steve and one of Joy’s contact’s friends to jump in. When asked where the mage was, he was hiding behind a car. So, I hacked into the car and, luckily, I was able to move it away so we had a clear shot at the mage. Tragically, he had a clear shot at us as well, and shot off a fireball. Steve tried to counter the spell, but it just missed. Sigh tried to take a shot, but I think she missed as well. I don’t know. All I do know is that we turned the corner and then we lost sight of the mage.

After that, we met Joy’s contact at some park and she gave him a box. He gave her a cred stick, and we called Vince to find a place to stay. He had a place, and we paid for it. So, we went to the place, and it turned out to be an underground safe house. We settled down in there, and then we were surprised to find a man walking into the place like he owned it. He looked like a cowboy, and Sigh introduced him as Tex. Apparently, Tex owns the place we were sent to, and Vince didn’t know that he was actually alive. Luckily, Tex allowed us to stay at his place, and I breathed a sigh of relief. Tex is an intimidating man, because I just know that he has skills with those guns he carries around.

[lunarboy4]

Shortly after we settled down in our new place, we received a call from Vince about a meet. After we hung up the phone, we all sat down and Sigh and I explained the situation. Apparently there are a total of seven people who could be after us. Ghost (who is an infiltrator assassin), a sniper, Gunther (the hacker from the guard job mission), Mastermind (the Indian guy from the casino mission and from the coffee shop), Bear (the heavily cybered guy from the guard job mission), Snappy (the mage who tried to kill Steve), and some random British guy Sigh ran into while I was asleep. Also, we decided to come up with a panic phrase in case we were in trouble. I’m not going to mention it on here, but, man, I could go for something to eat.

Anyways, after we got done with discussing that, we all went to the meet. There we got a job to get information from a small corporation about their new cyberware. We were warned that there would probably be hard-wired systems there. Also, we had to get it done before the science exposition at the science center.

So, we got home and I researched the corporation. It turns out that they specialize in data jacks and lower rejection rates of cyberware and bioware. Also, they are working on underwater kelp processing in zero to low light conditions, in an attempt to win the Draco foundation contract. I couldn’t really find anything on any labs they have in Seattle, so I talked to Search and Destroy. He asked for some nuyen, I paid him, and he went to researching.

A few days later, Search and Destroy got back to me and told me of three possible locations. One was next to a bagel place, one was off of I-95, but it was bombed out and probably not the lab we were looking for, and the other was an unknown location that was hardwired. Since that really didn’t help any, we decided to track down where the funds for the expo we wanted were coming from, and it turns out that the actual science center was somehow connected to the corporation we were running against. So, we decided to do some research and found out that there was a basement that was probably a black lab. We decided to do some recon.

Tragically, we needed to test their matrix security mostly, so it had to be me that went. But, it couldn’t be infiltrated easily. So, we came up with a plan. Apparently, Steve can use some spell that changes people into animals, and, since I’m a technomancer, my powers would still work while I was in an animal form. So, it was decided that I was going to become a rat and infiltrate the science center. So, we decided to test it out, and I noticed that I couldn’t feel things as far away as I normally could. It was weird, honestly. Also, Joy had me test out a new drug she made for me that would protect me from cleaning chemicals while I was down in the lab. I agreed to take it, and it didn’t seem to affect me that much. So, we bought me an RFID tag collar that was connected to Joy’s commlink and she and I went to the science center.

She dropped me off by the science center and she went to a coffee shop across the street and sat down outside to enjoy some coffee. I found an entrance that led into the kitchen, and I went in. I could tell that there have been many vermin here, because there was rat poo everywhere. Gross. Also, there were holes chewed into the cabinets, so I went through there and eventually chewed through the other side to get to a door. It took me a few tries, but I finally got through it! Once I was in the hallway, I saw a janitor. I tried to hide, but there was nowhere to hide. He picked me up, and I immediately went VR to try to spoof a command to have him go somewhere else. A few seconds later, I couldn’t quite do it, but I decided to go ahead and wake back up, and I was in a trashcan. I was somehow able to use my rat strength to get out, but it was still weird. Tragically, I was back in the kitchen, so I went back to the door and got out again. This time, I went down the other hallway and got to an elevator. I squeezed between the doors and found out that the elevator wasn’t there. Quickly, I squeezed back through and got back out. This time, I decided to hack into the elevator to get it. While I was doing that, I decided to see if I could get to the lower level and see what matrix security I could sense. I immediately recognized a faraday cage, and chickened out on the recon of the basement floor. I knew that I wouldn’t be able to connect with Joy once I went down there. So, I decided against it. I left through the kitchen and then messaged joy that I was ready to go. She came and got me, and we went home.

Once I was changed back and had some clothes on, Joy said that she wanted to run some diagnostics on me. I agreed, and she found something wrong. Apparently, once I changed back into a human, the drug was degenerating my muscles. She told me that it was an easy fix, and she fixed it. I still freaked out and the technology went haywire. I mean, Sigh had told me earlier about how corporations experiment on technomancers, and I felt experimented on. Joy managed to calm me down and get me better. But, Sigh was immediately upset, because she came storming in the room looking for me. After she left the room, she grabbed a gun and proceeded to shove it in Steve’s face. I immediately diffused the situation, but Sigh said that she needed to leave. So, she and I left to go get my gun fixed.

While we were out on our walk, I got out of her that she and Joy weren’t getting along because she didn’t like that Joy was experimenting on me. I decided to have us go back to the safe house to talk out our problems. So, we all sat down together to talk out our problems. Joy and Steve admitted that they didn’t trust Sigh because they were worried that she was going to kill them. She admitted that she didn’t trust them because she felt that they were trying to experiment on me like the corporations do to other technomancers. Joy assured her that was not her intention. After that, Sigh got really quiet and she left. I figured that she just wanted to cool down, but then she sent me files on all of the people who were trying to kill us.

Instantly I tried to track her down, but my track complex form is suckish. So, I told Steve and Joy that Sigh was trying to kill herself and that we needed to track her down. Steve did his magiky thingy and found that she was in a park, so we went to the park. There, we saw her sitting in the middle of the park, so I approached her. As I was walking towards her and trying to talk to her, I got shot. I felt my knee shatter, and I was crying my eyes out. It hurt so badly! The next thing I knew, Joy was picking me up and I was put in the auto doc. But, since my techno abilities were going haywire, Joy and I agreed to make me pass out. After that, I woke up a couple of days later in a shadow hospital with a feeling that my connection to the resonance was somehow weaker. They told me that they had to replace my knee because there was no fixing it.

After that, we found out that Sigh got arrested, so we were assigned another team member. She was a hacker, and she was a bitch! She was so rude and she kept asking all of these questions about the matrix security that I didn’t think to look for because they don’t really matter. Okay, they actually kind of matter, but still. I don’t like feeling incompetent. But, it was nice to have some help because after we met up to meet her we went to the science center. There, she and I immediately went to work, she was going to handle the spiders while tried to open the doors. We worked together, meaning that she did all of the fighting while I tried to use my better command complex form to open the doors. Once I did that, I tried to compile a fault sprite to help her out, but it was destroyed before it could help her. Once she noticed that I opened the doors, she logged out, and I logged out.

We all got into the building, and then we kept trying to sneak toward the door. Joy and I were the only ones who seemed to be seen, so we got shot with these weird spheres that stuck to us. We eventually made it to the elevator, where all we had to do was distract the guard and get into the elevator. From there we got down to the black lab where all the scientists were already on the ground and trying to not die. The other hacker and I went into the room with the hard wired systems, I put some hacker gum onto a connection outlet, and we got the information. After that, I walked out the door and saw Bear, the heavily cybered guy. He raised a gun in my direction, fired a lot of bullets, and I passed out.



Will she live or will she die? Find out next time in, The Diary of Aqua!!!!